Ad Exec on Blockers: "Little Piss Ants" Threaten Freedom of Speech

The CEO of IAB, the US internet advertising trade body, is firing back at ad blockers.

The war between advertisers and the blockers of those adverts is becoming more heated every day and, frankly, getting a little bit schoolyard.

In a recent speech, available here, Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Internet Advertising Body, made some biting comments about his supposed adversaries in the ad blocking industry, referring to them as an "unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes." Hey, great use of the word "coven!"

Later, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Rothenberg said, "these ad blocking companies are little piss ants... run by a handful of people with silly titles and funny walks who are individually irrelevant." He added that they were diminishing freedom of expression.

His comments come after a few recent skirmishes over your internet browsing eyes: AdBlock-Plus had recently complained that IAB had "disinvited" them from a major conference. Randall insists they were never "invited" in the first place.

Another momentous event was the announcement of Brave, a new browser company headed by the recently squeezed-out CEO of Mozilla. Brendan Eich's start-up officially launched a week ago. Rothenberg summarized it thus: "His business model not only strips advertisements from publishers' pages - it replaces them with his own for-profit ads."

No one on either side of this issue comes out sounding great, it must be said.